The placement of secondary school students withStatements of special educational needs in the more diversified system ofEnglish secondary schooling

Abstract

This article examines the pattern of placement of students with significant special educational needs at Statement and School Action Plus levels in English secondary schools, comparing sponsored and converter academies, maintained schools and the newly created free schools, studio schools and university technical colleges for 2013 and 2014. The analysis shows a clear pattern of differences: converter academies (which are governed by their own governing body) had significantly lower proportions of students with significant special educational needs overall than maintained (those remaining under local authority management) and sponsored academies (those considered to be weak/failing schools forced to become academies with outside sponsors that oversee the schools). There was a similar pattern of findings for most areas of special educational needs, except visual impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. The pattern of placement of students with Statements in the newly created free schools also showed that some free schools have unusually high proportions of students with special educational needs. These findings are discussed in terms of the bs_bs_banner PLACEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS increasing stratification of English secondary schools and the potential of small secondary schools to be more inclusive.

School autonomy and educational inclusion of children with special needs: Evidence from England

“…Sponsored academies change their status to have a fresh start, with the goal of raising academic standards in challenging social circumstances. They have higher proportions of pupils with SEN than converter academies (Norwich & Black, ). They may focus on raising standards for all low‐attaining pupils and so comply with the inspection agency’s advice to reduce the over‐identification of SEN. Reducing the proportions of pupils with SEN in the school may also be seen to have reputational benefits, without losing SEN funding that can be redirected to those with more significant SEN. Converter academies have lower baseline proportions of pupils with SEN, and their focus following academisation is less likely to be about SEN provision than in sponsored academies.…”

“…Though there have been several studies on the influence of US charter schools on pupils who require special educational services, there have been no previous studies in England. This focus on pupils with learning difficulties and disabilities connects this study to contemporary issues in inclusive education, which is commonly understood in terms of the greater academic and social participation of diverse students in a common school (Norwich & Black, ). Inclusive education has become a ‘global movement’ (Peters, ), located at the forefront of international education policy agendas.…”

Academisation of Schools in England and Placements of Pupils With Special Educational Needs: An Analysis of Trends, 2011–2017

“…For both phases, the proportion with Statements/EHC Plans was also higher in Sponsored Academies than the other school types. This may reflect that Sponsored Academies were schools which were not performing well in Inspection terms and thus are likely to have had more disadvantaged student intakes (Bolton, 2014;Norwich and Black, 2015). Another aspect to consider is that any reduction of LA services, particularly in relation to Special Educational Needs support had left such schools more vulnerable to slipping in performance than they would otherwise have been with this support from the LA (Keddie, 2017).…”

“…This commission recommended that such practices be eradicated through school-to-school collaboration as the way to improve achievement for all. Norwich and Black (2015) show that some authors argue that the development of a variety of school types reduces diversity in the student population within each school type and heralding the arrival of a two-tier system based on socio-economic boundaries (Taylor et al, 2005;Exley, 2009). Wilson (2011) compared 33 schools which became Academies after 2003 over an 11 year period with non-Academy schools between 1997 and 2007 (before the more recent acceleration of academisation).…”

“…There have been no studies which have provided evidence directly relevant to these questions. For example, in a more recent study of the growth of Academies and Free schools since 2010, it was shown that there were different percentages of pupils with significant SEN (with Statements) between academies and maintained English secondary schools (Norwich and Black, 2015). Converter Academies (the most autonomous of the types) had the lowest percentage of pupils with Statements of SEN, the sponsored Academies (required to convert and governed by outside sponsor) had the highest percentage with Statements, while maintained schools (remaining as local authority schools) had percentages between these levels.…”